No page of glory

The Galician killing fields in the words of German functionaries

In mid-March 1942 some 75 to 80 percent of all victims of the Holocaust were still alive, while 20 to 25 percent had perished. A mere eleven months later, in mid-February 1943, the percentages were exactly the reverse. At the core of the Holocaust was a short, intense wave of mass murder. The center of gravity of this mass murder was Poland, where in March 1942, despite two and a half years of terrible hardship, deprivation, and persecution, every major Jewish community was still intact, and where eleven months later only the remnants of Polish Jewry survived in a few rump ghettos and labor camps.

Christopher Browning, Ordinary Men

Shavua Tov and Gmar Chatima Tova. I trust you had a meaningful fast. I spent 12 hours in shul yesterday, as did two of my kids who — remarkably — kept themselves entertained with other kids outside.

In the spirit of emerging atoned with a fresh start to a new year, I reflect below on 1942 (yes — that’s a joke). I extract from two contemporaneous reports that document slivers of the Galician killing fields. Extracts are from the excellent and harrowing Ordinary Men: Reserve Police Battalion 101 and the Final Solution in Poland by Christopher Browning.

I write this in memory of my great-grandfather Chaim-Volf Frishling, my great-grandmother Chaya-Tzvia Frishling, and their son Leyzer who was 11 when they killed along with the other Jews of Horodenko and millions more around them. Horodenko is too small for big books to be written about, but it’s mentioned in the first extract below. May their memory be a blessing.

[It should go without saying — tough language and images ahead.]

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In mid-September 1942 an Order Police captain of Reserve Police Battalion 133 in Police Regiment 24 reported on the experiences of one week of deportation operations.

7. 1Pol. 24.

Lemberg [Lwow], September 14, 1942

To: Commander of the Order Police in the district of Galicia, Lemberg

Subject: Jewish Resettlement

After carrying out Jewish resettlement actions on the 3rd and 5th of September in Skole, Stryj, and Khodorov, for which Captain of the Schutzpolizei Kropelin was in charge of the Order Police involved and which has already been reported in detail, the 7th Company of the 24th Police Regiment arrived as ordered in Kotomyja on the evening of September 6. I immediately contacted Kriminal Kommissar and SS-Obersturmführer Leitmaritz, head of the branch office of the Security Police in Kotomyja, and First Lieutenant Hertel of the Schutzpolizei station in Kotomyja.

Contrary to the experience in Stryj, the action planned for September 7 in Kotomyja was well prepared and made easy for all units involved. The Jews had been informed by the above-mentioned agencies and the Labor Office to gather at the collection point of the Labor Office for registration on September 7 at 5:30 a.m. Some 5,300 Jews were actually assembled there at the appointed time. With all the manpower of my company, I sealed the Jewish quarter and searched thoroughly, whereby some 600 additional Jews were hunted down.

The loading of the transport train was completed about 7 p.m. After the Security Police released some 1,000 from the total rounded up, 4,769 Jews were resettled. Each car of the transport was loaded with 100 Jews. The great heat prevailing that day made the entire action very difficult and greatly impeded the transport. After the regular nailing up and sealing of all cars, the transport train got underway to Belzec about 9 p.m. with a guard of one officer and nine men. With the coming of deep darkness in the night, many Jews escaped by squeezing through the air holes after removing the barbed wire. While the guard was able to shoot many of them immediately, most of the escaping Jews were eliminated that night or the next day by the railroad guard or other police units. This transport was delivered in Belzec without noteworthy incident, although given the length of the train and the deep darkness, the guard had proved to be too weak, as the commander of the transport guard from 6th Company of Police Regiment 24, who returned directly to Stanislawow, was able to report to me in person on September 11.

On September 8, some 300 Jews-old and weak, ill, frail, and no longer transportable-were executed. According to the order of September 4, of which I was first informed on September 6, concerning use of ammunition, 90% of all those executed were shot with carbines and rifles. Only in exceptional cases were pistols used.

On September 8 and 10, actions in Kuty, Kosov, Horodenka, Zaplatov, and Sniatyn were carried out. Some 1,500 Jews had to be driven on foot marches 50 kilometers from Kuty or 35 kilometers from Kosov to Kolomyja, where they were kept overnight in the courtyard of the Security Police prison with the other Jews brought together from the region. Other than the Jews rounded up in Horodenka and Sniatyn, who had already been loaded onto ten cars at each location by the Security Police, another 30 cars were loaded in Kolomyja. The total number sent to Belzec on the resettlement train of September 10 amounted to 8,205.

In the actions in the area around Kolomyja on September 8 and 10, some 400 Jews had to be eliminated by shooting for the well-known reasons. In the great roundup of Jews to be resettled by September 10 in Kolnmyja, the Security Police loaded all Jews into the 30 available train cars despite the objections I expressed. Given the great heat prevailing on those days and the strain on the Jews from the long foot marches or from waiting for days without being given any provisions worth noting, the excessively great overloading of most of the cars with 180 to 200 Jews was catastrophic in a way that had tremendously adverse effects on the transport.

How densely the ten cars each in Horodenka and Sniatyn were loaded with Jews by the Security Police is beyond my knowledge. In any case, both transports arrived in Kolomyja with completely inadequate guard, so that the barbed wire closing the air holes was almost entirely removed. As quickly as possible I had this train moved out of the train station in Kolomyja and coupled with the 30 cars standing on a side track far from the station. The Jewish police (Ordnungsdienst) and members of the train station construction crew from Kolomyja were employed until the onset of darkness to close up all the insufficiently sealed cars in the usual regulation manner. A commando of one officer and fifteen men under the leadership of Captain Zitzmann was assigned to guard the parked resettlement train of 50 cars until departure and to prevent any escape attempt. Given the already described strains on the Jews, the negative effect of the heat, and the great overloading of most of the cars, the Jews attempted time and again to break out of the parked train cars, as darkness had already set in toward 7:30 p.m. At 7:50 p.m. the guard commando of the resettlement train, with nine men under Corporal Jacklein, arrived at the side track. Breakout attempts from the parked train could not be prevented in the darkness, nor could the escaping Jews be shot in flight. In all train cars the Jews had completely undressed because of the heat.

As the train left Kolomyja on schedule at 8:50 p. m., the guard took up their stations. The guard commando, as initially stipulated by me, was divided into five men in a passenger car at the front and five men in a passenger car at the end of the train. On account of the length of the train and its total load of 8,205 Jews, this distribution proved to be unsuitable. Next time Corporal J. will arrange a distribution of the guards along the entire train. Throughout the entire trip the policemen had to remain in the cabooses, in order to be able to counter the escape attempts of the Jews. Shortly into the journey the Jews attempted to break through the sides and even through the ceilings of certain train cars. They were partially successful in perpetrating this scheme, so that already five stations before Stanislawow, Corporal J. had to ask the stationmaster in Stanislawow by telephone to lay out nails and boards in order to seal the damaged cars as required by orders and to request the station guard to watch the train. As the train entered Stanislawow, the train station workers and the station guards were present to carry out the necessary repairs and in addition take over guarding the train.

The work took one and one-half hours. When the train subsequently resumed its journey, it was discovered at the next stop some stations later that once again large holes had been broken by the Jews in some of the train cars and that for the most part the barbed wire fastened on the outside of the ventilation windows had been torn off. In one train car the Jews had even been working with hammer and saw. Upon interrogation they explained that the Security Police had left these tools with them, because they could make good use of them at their next work place. Corporal J. made the Jews hand over the tools. During the further journey, at every station stop, help was needed to nail up the train, because otherwise the rest of the trip would not have been at all possible. At 11:15 a.m. the train reached Lemberg. Because no relief for the escort commando arrived, the escort commando J. had to continue guarding the train until Belzec. After a brief halt at the Lemberg train station, the train continued to the suburban station of Klaporov, where nine train cars marked with the letter "L" and destined for the labor camp were turned over to SS-Oberstunnführer Schulze and unloaded. SS-Oberstunnführer Schulze then had some additional 1,000 Jews loaded. About 1:30 p.m. the transport departed for Belzec.

With the change of engine in Lemberg, such an old engine was hooked up that further travel was possible only with continuous interruptions. The slow journey was time and again used by the strongest Jews to press themselves through the holes they had forced open and to seek their safety in flight, because in jumping from the slow-moving train they were scarcely injured. Despite the repeated requests to the engineer to go faster, this was not possible, so that the frequent stops on open stretches became increasingly unpleasant.

Shortly beyond Lemberg the commando had already shot off the ammunition they had with them and also used up a further 200 rounds that they had received from army soldiers, so that for the rest of the journey they had to resort to stones while the train was moving and to fixed bayonets when the train was stopped.

The ever greater panic spreading among the Jews due to the great heat, overloading of the train cars, and stink of dead bodies — when unloading the train cars some 2,000 Jews were found dead in the train — made the transport almost unworkable. At 6:45 p.m. the transport arrived in Belzec, and around 7:30 p.m. was turned over by Corporal J. to the SS-Oberstunnführer and head of the camp there. Until the unloading of the transport around 10 p.m., J. had to remain in the camp, while the escort commando was used to guard the train cars parked outside the camp. Because of the special circumstances described, the number of Jews who escaped from this transport cannot be specified. Nonetheless, it can be assumed that at least two-thirds of the escaping Jews were shot or rendered harmless in some other way.

In the actions themselves for the period of September 7-10, 1942, no special incidents occurred. The cooperation between the Security Police and the Order Police units involved was good and without friction.

(signed)

Westermann Reserve Lieutenant of the Schutzpolizei and Company Commander

This is what Ordinary Men author Christopher Browning said about the above report:

This document demonstrates many things: the desperate attempts of the deported Jews to escape the death train; the scanty manpower employed by the Germans (a mere 10 men to guard over 8,000 Jews); the unimaginably terrible conditions forced marches over many miles, terrible heat, days without food and water, the packing of 200 Jews into each train car, etc.— that led to fully 25 percent of the deported Jews dying on the train from suffocation, heat prostration, and exhaustion (to say nothing of those killed in the shooting, which was so constant that the guards expended their entire ammunition supply as well as replenishment); the casual mention that even bef0re the deportations hundreds of Jews judged too old, frail, or sick to get to the train were routinely shot in each action.

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This second report is also surreal in its Kafka-esque bureaucratic language and internecine feuding between the German civil administration and liquidation troops. Its author’s economic concerns are interesting because this is written following the invasion of Russia. The liquidation of Jews trumped the need to feed the German war machine.

In late October the two companies of Order Police and their Lithuanian auxiliaries were ordered by the army to liquidate all the Jews in Slutsk, south of Minsk, a town of some 12,000 inhabitants, one-third Jewish. Again the measure was justified as a deterrent for the protection of German troops. What happened in Slutsk on October 27 was the subject of a report from the head of the German civil administration there to his boss, Wilhelm Kube, in Minsk.

Slutsk, 30 October 1941

Regional Commissioner Slutsk

To: General Commissioner in Minsk

Concerning: Jewish action

In reference to my telephone report of October 27, 1941, I submit the following to you in writing:

On the morning of October 27 about 8 o'clock, a first lieutenant of Police Battalion 11 from Kovno (Lithuania) appeared. He introduced himself as the adjutant of the battalion commander of the Security [sic] Police. The first lieutenant declared that the police battalion had been assigned the task of carrying out the liquidation of all Jews in the city of Slutsk within two days. The battalion commander was approaching with a force of four companies, two of them Lithuanian auxiliaries, and the action had to begin immediately. I thereupon answered the first lieutenant that in any case I first of all had to discuss the action with the commander. About one-half hour later the police battalion arrived in Slutsk. As requested, the discussion with the battalion commander then took place immediately after his arrival. I explained first of all to the commander that it would scarcely be possible to carry out the action without prior preparation, because all [the Jews] had been sent to work and there would be frightful confusion. At the very least, he was obligated to give one day's notice. I then asked him to postpone the action for one day. He nonetheless rejected this, noting that he had to carry out actions in the cities all around and only two days were available for Slutsk. At the end of these two days Slutsk had to be absolutely free of Jews. I immediately lodged the sharpest protest against this, in which I emphasized that a liquidation of the Jews could not take place arbitrarily. The larger portion of Jews still present in the city consisted of craftsmen and their families. One simply could not do without the Jewish craftsmen, because they were indispensable for the maintenance of the economy. Furthermore I referred to the fact that White Russian craftsmen were, so to say, utterly unavailable, that therefure all vital enterprises would be paralyzed with a single blow if all Jews were liquidated. At the conclusion of our discussion I mentioned that the craftsmen and specialists, insofar as they were indispensable, had identification on hand, and that these Jews were not to be taken out of the workshops. It was further agreed that all Jews still in the city, especially the craftsmen's families, whom I also did not want to have liquidated, should first of all be brought to the ghetto for the purpose of sorting. Two of my officials were to be authorized to carry out the sorting. The commander in no way opposed my position, so in good faith I believed that the action would therefore be carried out accordingly.

Several hours after the action began, the greatest difficulties were already becoming apparent. I discovered that the commander was not at all abiding by our arrangement. Contrary to the agreement, all Jews without exception were being taken from the factories and workshops and sent off. A portion of the Jews were in any case taken through the ghetto, where many were grabbed and selected out by me, but most were loaded directly on trucks and without further ado liquidated outside the city. Shortly after noon, complaints were already coming from all sides that the workshops could no longer operate because all Jewish craftsmen had been removed. Because the commander had driven on to Baranovichi, I contacted the deputy commander, a captain, after a long search and demanded that the action be immediately stopped, because it was not taking place according to my instructions and the economic damage already inflicted could not be made good. The captain was very astonished by my viewpoint and explained that he had received instructions from the commander to make the city free of Jews without exception, as they had also done in other cities. The cleansing had to take place on political grounds, and nowhere had economic factors so far played a role. Upon my energetic interventions he then nonetheless stopped the action toward evening.

What else concerns this action, I must to my greatest regret emphasize, is last of all that it bordered on sadism. During the action the city itself offered a horrible picture. With indescribable brutality, by the German policemen as well but especially by the Lithuanians, the Jews and also White Russians were taken out of their lodgings and driven together. There was shooting everywhere in the city, and in the individual streets bodies of Jews who had been shot piled up. The White Russians had the greatest difficulty in extricating themselves from the roundup. Aside from the fact that the Jews, among them also craftsmen, were brutally mistreated in a frightfully barbarous way before the eyes of the White Russians, the latter were likewise beaten with truncheons and clubs. One can no longer speak of a Jewish action, it appeared much more like a revolution. I and all my officials were in the midst of this all day without a break, in order to save what could still be saved. Repeatedly I literally had to drive German police officials as well as Lithuanians out of the workshops with drawn revolver. My own gendarmes were given the same task but because of the wild shooting often had to get off the streets in order not to be shot themselves. The entire scene was altogether more than ghastly. In the afternoon a large number of horse-drawn carts without drivers stood around in the streets, so that I had to assign the city administration immediately to take care of them. Afterward it turned out that they were Jewish wagons that had been assigned by the army to transport ammunition. The Jews had simply been taken down from the wagons and marched off, without anyone caring for the wagons.

I was not present at the shootings outside the city. Thus I can say nothing about the brutality. But it suffices when I emphasize that long after being thrown in the grave, some of those shot worked their way out again. Concerning the economic damage I note that the tannery was most frightfully affected. Twenty-six experts worked there. In one blow fifteen of the best specialists among them were shot. Another four jumped from the wagons while underway and escaped, while seven avoided being seized through flight. Five men worked in the wheelwright shop, four of whom were shot, and the shop must now be kept going with only one wheelwright. Still other craftsmen are missing, such as cabinetmakers, smiths, etc. So far it has not been possible for me to get a precise overview. As I already mentioned at the beginning, the families of the craftsmen were also supposed to have been spared. Today it appears, however, that in almost every family some people are missing. Reports come in from everywhere, from which it can be concluded that in some such families the craftsman himself, in others the wife, and in yet others the children are missing. Thus almost all families have been tom apart. In these circumstances it must be very doubtful if the remaining craftsmen are enthusiastic about their work and produce accordingly, the more so in that at the moment they are still walking around with faces beaten bloody on account of the brutality. The White Russians, whose full trust had been won, stood there aghast. Although they are intimidated and do not dare to express their opinions freely, one nonetheless hears it said that this day represented no page of glory for Germany and that it will never be forgotten. I am of the opinion that through this action much has been destroyed that we had achieved over the last months, and that it will be a long time before we can again win the trust of the population.

In conclusion I find myself compelled to point out that during the action the police battalion plundered in an outrageous way, and indeed not only in Jewish houses, but just as much in the houses of the White Russians. They took with them anything useful, such as boots, leather, textiles, gold, and other valuables. According to the accounts of members of the army, watches were torn from the arms of Jews publicly in the streets, rings were pulled off fingers in the most brutal way. One senior paymaster reported that a Jewish girl was ordered by the police immediately to fetch 5,000 rubles, then her father would be released. This girl is said to have run around everywhere trying to get the money. Also within the ghetto the individual barracks that were nailed shut by the civil administration and provided with a Jewish inventory were broken into and robbed by the police. Even in the barracks in which the unit was lodged, window frames and doors were torn out for the camp fire. Even though I had a talk with the commander's adjutant on Tuesday morning concerning the plundering and he promised me in the course of the conversation that no police would henceforth enter the city, several hours later I was forced once again to arrest two fully armed Lithuanians, because they were caught looting. On the night of Tuesday to Wednesday, the battalion left the city in the direction of Baranovichi. The population was manifestly happy as the news spread through the city.

So much for the report. I will come to Minsk in the near future in order once again to discuss the matter orally. At the moment I am not able to continue the Jewish action. First peace must return. I hope to be able to restore peace as quickly as possible and despite the difficulties to revive the economy. I now ask only that one request be granted me: "In the future spare me without fail from this police battalion."

Carl

Thanks Carl.